The original Galaxy Fold from Samsung might have had a rough start to its life, but it helped pave the way for an excellent line of foldables. The most recent Galaxy Z Fold 5 is about as good as it gets in the world of big foldables, although competitors are starting to (finally) catch up. That Fold 5, and several Z Fold devices before it, can thank the original from 2019 for getting us to where we are today.
Unfortunately, the original Samsung Galaxy Fold has reached its end of life in terms of support. The first big foldable from Samsung is done receiving updates, according to Samsung’s mobile security updates page. The Fold was removed last night after spending the previous year in the quarterly updates section. We knew this day was coming, but it’s still semi-shocking to think we’ve been through 5 generations and 5 years of foldables already, leading to one of them being cut off from updates.
For those who need a refresher, the original Galaxy Fold launch in 2019 in almost the worst possible way. In the first half of the year, Samsung sent a small batch of review units to select media, who then ran into all sorts of screen issues. The phone eventually launched to all toward the end of 2019, but was clearly an early-stage product that we even called an alpha. Samsung said at one point that they sold 500,000 of them, which is surprising after the early struggles. People were excited about foldables, it seems.
But look, the bigger story is that Samsung just called it Galaxy Fold. They didn’t insert that stupid “Z” into the name, kept things simple, and should listen to us when we say in our The Social Network voice, “Drop the Z.”
Say goodbye to software support on the Galaxy Fold today, if you still have one. Does anyone still have one? Did the phone somehow survive 5 years of use? Someone please show me one in the comments.
